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Deer Creek's sixth-grade STEM saved by school board

By Josie KlemaierYourHub Reporter

Posted:
01/23/2014 05:45:00 PM MST

JEFFERSON COUNTY — The Jefferson County Board of Education approved the extension of Deer Creek Middle School's science, engineering, technology and math program for its sixth-grade students in the 2014-15 school year, a motion made late in the Jan. 16 meeting.

The board also approved a $400,000 loan to Collegiate Academy of Colorado charter school and revisited plans for a classroom dashboard at the meeting in front of a packed house at the Arvada Senior High School auditorium.

The Deer Creek item was not on the board's agenda for the evening — or any past board agenda — but a group of 16 district parents and students came with a petition with 159 signatures and asked in public comment that the board allow the program's expansion for the next school year.

Deer Creek Middle School had been planning to expand its seventh- and eighth-grade science, engineering, technology and math, or STEM, program to its sixth-grade students since earlier in the year, Jeffco Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said. She updated the new board with the information in December.

"This was not a departure from our normal operation," Stevenson said,
citing similar programs, such as Pomona High School's arts and humanities
and international baccalaureate programs, that have likewise been "based on work with our communities."

At a board retreat Dec. 14, Stevenson got the go-ahead to notify parents of the expansion, but later one member asked that it be moved to discussion, and then it was put on hold in a study session.

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The motion to go ahead with the STEM expansion was approved with Lesley Dahlkemper, Jill Fellman and Julie Williams voting yes and Newkirk and board president Ken Witt voting no.

"You'd have to look pretty hard to find a more enthusiastic advocate than me," Witt said about STEM. However, he said, he felt he needed more information and community input before saying yes to the decision.

Representatives from Collegiate Academy of Colorado charter school presented a summary of where the school's current financial state and its five-year forecast, which were requested by the board at its Dec. 12 meeting.

The school was able to cut expenses in 2013, school officials said, allowing it to refrain from using any of the $150,000 the district loaned it previously. They lowered their loan request from $450,000 to $400,000.

"I am cautiously optimistic that we will not have to have this conversation again in the future," Newkirk said.

Newkirk, Witt and Williams voted to approve the loan, and Dahlkemper and Fellman praised the school's progress but expressed concerns that it was too high of a risk for the district and voted against it.

The board received an update on the classroom dashboard, a computer program that stores and tracks student data such as grades and work progress.

Matt Cormier, executive director of educational technology for Jeffco schools, assured the board that tstudent data will be stored on internal servers. He compared the classroom dashboard to a GPS in that it offers direction but recalculates when a teacher chooses a direction that matches a student's individual needs.

"Just like a GPS, where it's constantly taking in information, we want to build a system that is constantly taking in information and giving feedback to not only teachers but to students and to parents," he said.

Cormier said they hope to start schools on fully updated classroom dashboard program in the first phase of schools by January 2015. The second phase of schools would begin in August 2015, and the third and final phase of schools would get the program by January 2016.

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